The Liar's Waltz
by spheeris1
Summary: Slight-AU :: One-shot :: Split POVs :: A nice heaping dose of angst. :: It's a party but not everyone is celebrating. :: Tortured-Minx


**When I get into a fandom, I tend to dream about the characters. So, this is based off of a dream I had last night. Bit AU (Alternative Universe) but not by much.**

/ /

Sometimes she feels like the only lesbian in the world.

She'll look around a room, at a party much like this one, and notice the way that all the people interact – all the decidedly heterosexual people, that is. These people hold hands or flirt with one another; these people play games and tell lies and sneak off to some dark corner in order to make-out.

Men and women, doing their man and woman thing.

Not that the rules are really that different when you are gay; she knows this and acknowledges this with relative ease. If this were a room full of women, there would still be eyes that roam from a devoted partner or verbal sparring in-between interesting dance moves. There would still be the vast potential for calamity and passion; and, in her experience, those two things go hand-in-hand.

When she actually thinks about it, with a rational mind and a cynical heart, she is glad to not be a part of this mess. This slightly drunk and slightly envious and slightly silly mess that is a party in Pine Valley – with family members caught up in drama and strangers sneaking up on the scene and a million other disasters waiting to happen as the music plays on.

So, really, it is kind of a blessing to be the only lesbian around – if not in the world, at least in this town.

And she is, you know? The only lesbian in this whole town. Well, Sienna The Attorney notwithstanding. That's how Kendall has taken to calling the woman and no one seems anxious to correct Kendall, not even the sister who Sienna The Attorney tried to woo.

Not that you can call one aborted date a real attempt at wooing.

The only thing accomplished on that day was awkwardness and the prevailing sense that, no matter how hard she might try, things were not changing. In fact, things just got worse somehow. Things just keep spiraling out of control and things are uncomfortable and things… oh these silly and stupid things…

She thinks about moving away. Not Paris, though. Never Paris. That city, with its tower and its cafes, looks like a broken heart when she happens to see a map. So, no, she won't be going there again.

Maybe England? Maybe L.A.? Maybe somewhere in Canada?

She could take the girls and hit the beach and never leave. She could pack them up and build a cabin the woods. She could reinvent her life once more and, in the process, excavate pointless memories and pointless feelings. She could start anew.

God knows she has had to start over many times before. She knows that there's a career in self-help books that she is sadly neglecting to chase down. She could make a fortune off of her mistakes.

If she needed a fortune. Which she doesn't.

Someone accidentally bumps into her and there goes the reverie; soon enough Kendall is there and dragging her onto the floor. She doesn't want to dance. She can't help but smile at her sister's antics but, honestly, dancing is the last thing she wants to do.

Dancing means to let loose. Dancing means to be close to other people. Dancing means that there is small and dangerous chance that she will come into contact with Marissa Tasker.

She's been avoiding that contact. She's **had** to avoid that contact. In one way, it is to show support for Marissa and J.R. and the return of their complicated relationship. In another way, it is to protect herself from more pain. Sure, she did the selfless thing and said a lot about 'if you are happy, I am happy, blah blah blah'. But what people rarely realize is that in being selfless and denying yourself… you are just running scared.

Somewhere along the way, Bianca isn't sure if she helped J.R. to make Marissa happy or to save her own skin from getting burned.

/ /

She really needs to stop.

Now, this internal command could go for a lot of things in her life these days. She really needs to stop dancing because her feet hurt in these shoes. She really needs to stop eating so much chocolate cake and always between the hours of eleven and midnight. She really needs to stop sighing – and not in a happy way – whenever J.R. thinks that arrogant comes off as confident.

Oh, but truly, she really needs to stop looking at Bianca.

However, even if her mind wanders away from the present, it is still very much a one track sort of deal and extremely hard to derail. So, her brain tends to go wherever it wants to. Sometimes it will go to A.J. and his cute smile and how nice it is to hug him every morning. Other times it will be a case or a chore of some kind or an observation.

Most times, though, it is the past. And the past has a very distinctive face attached to it; a visage that she has looked upon too many times to count.

Like, right now, she can close her eyes - as J.R. rests his hands on her waist and as they lazily turn around and around with everyone else – and she is sitting on a bench in the park and the snow is still on the ground and a pair of dark eyes slide her way. Those eyes, so deep and so open, look at her with such friendliness and such compassion. Those eyes say, without a shadow of a doubt, 'you can trust me'.

And so she did.

She can be giving and she can be understanding, too; life isn't easy and everyone makes mistakes, so you learn to forgive as best you can. She can trust people… sometimes… Some of the time, that is. But trust is difficult to come by sometimes, too.

She used to imagine a world where her mother came and found her, back when she was a child, and it wasn't because she didn't love her adoptive parents. She did. She does. But, back then, back in a child's heart, things were heartbreakingly simple – you lose and you are lost.

That's what she learned to trust in the most. She learned to trust in the losing. Oh yes, love may come but she knows that it will most certainly go.

But, God, does love have to come so suddenly and screw things up so badly?

That's a question she's been asking herself for weeks now. She doesn't have an answer yet. All she seems to have is time, endless amounts of time. And all that time is spent thinking about this question… or staring at Bianca whenever Bianca is actually near enough to see these days.

They don't see each other anymore. Even J.R., clueless and boyishly self-centered as he can be, has noticed this fact and brought it up once. How can she explain it to him, though? How can she sit him down and say the words that she cannot even say to… well, to Bianca?

It's kind of funny because she can say the words to herself.

She has said them quite a lot actually. Twice in the shower. A couple of times while driving. Once, while standing outside of Krystal's, she said those words to herself in a determined whisper as she spied Bianca through the window. She thought she could walk in there and blurt out all those emotions and deal with it.

Of course, she didn't do that.

It was to avoid a mess. It was to avoid making **more **of a mess. It just didn't work, though. Everything is off-kilter now. Everything is slightly unbalanced and it leaves her feeling like she might fall over at any moment.

Like right now, with a fast song playing and people being ridiculous and she believes it to be safe to relax a little bit, and then she starts to falling again. Not literally. Her feet are on the floor and her body is upright but it still feels like she is racing towards the ground; she is rushing head-long into something that she has never felt before and, yet, she recognizes it almost immediately.

There's Bianca, being twirled around by Kendall, with a smile that could light up this room.

There's the love of Marissa's life and tumbling down is all she can ever do.

/ /

This is what happens in movies. Or in really cheesy novels.

One person turns around and another person is caught staring. Movements slow down and eyes lock and so much is being conveyed without lips parting. No one else notices this moment. But, then again, no one else is ever meant to notice, right?

That's what happens in those movies. That's what happens in those really cheesy novels.

And for a second or two, it goes just like that.

Marissa takes hold of a sliver of bravery and leans forward, close enough to be heard and far enough away to make an escape if need be. And Bianca disregards every impulse that is telling her to step back, ignoring every red flag that is waving inside of her body; Bianca waits and Marissa speaks.

"I don't know about you but my feet are killing me."

Like a switch being flipped, Bianca grins and Marissa does the same and it feels like yesterday. Well, if yesterday was really months ago, and they were friends and nothing more. Or, rather, they were friends and so much more.

That's another question, one that the both of them have pondered during long hours: were they always more than they thought? Is this really a surprise… or just something inevitable, just something wonderful that they wanted to deny?

"Well, this is my first spin around the floor… but, if Kendall has her way, my feet will be joining you in agony soon enough. She's like a damn top out here."

Then they both look over at the topic of their conversation. Kendall is enjoying herself to the fullest. In fact, everyone seems to be going all-out. Everyone is here and everyone is enjoying themselves and no one is watching two women move closer and closer to one another.

Not even Marissa.  
>Not even Bianca.<p>

"Then let's speed up your progress!"

Marissa grabs Bianca's hand. Soft touch and heated flesh. But they don't break away just yet; they laugh some and they dance some and Marissa's hand slowly drifts up from Bianca's hand and alights upon Bianca's forearm. A hot sensation floods Bianca's face and those red flags are now the size of sails but, instead of cutting off this contact, Bianca gives into it.

Bianca dips her head a little as that grin grows wider and so she reaches out, too.

Marissa watches in a daze as Bianca's arms move, as if in slow motion, and soon they are going around Marissa's waist. The pressure of Bianca's hands register in Marissa's mind – the tips of fingers, the heel of each palm – and Marissa actually thinks she will start swooning, just like those absurd women in over-the-top melodramas.

But it is true. It is all true.

The song is still loud and fast and everyone else is going at the speed of light.

But Bianca and Marissa are going in the opposite direction; they are languid in how they sway side to side. They aren't really dancing anymore. They are just together and closer than they have been in quite some time. They are wrapped up in each other and this party means nothing to Marissa and this party means nothing to Bianca.

Marissa's hand slips further along on Bianca's arm and crests the shoulder, finally stopping along the slope of Bianca's neck. And Bianca looks up, right into Marissa's serious gaze. This time, they are not standing down. This time, all the things that have been wrong now feel oh so right.

And Marissa wants only to kiss Bianca.  
>And Bianca wants only to be kissed by Marissa.<p>

"Hey, there you are! C'mon, I know you are tired but one more dance, okay?"

J.R.'s voice booms over them like thunder and, just like that, everything ends.

"Oh, hey Bianca. Glad to see you two hanging out, just like old times, right? But I've got to steal my lady here for one more turn around the floor."

And, just like that, it is as if nothing has changed at all.

/ /

Bianca thinks she must be the only lesbian in the world.

Or, at very least and on this night, the only lesbian in Pine Valley who is in love with her best friend and doesn't know how to let go of the girl… or how to fight for the girl either.

And Marissa really needs to stop.

Or, at the very least and on this night, she really needs to stop staring after her best friend and aching for this girl from afar… or she really needs to stop pretending that she isn't in love with this girl at all.

/ /

**END**


End file.
